The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas

Edited by Carlos Rojas and Eileen Chow

Description

What does it mean for a cinematic work to be "Chinese"? Does it refer specifically to a work's subject, or does it also reflect considerations of language, ethnicity, nationality, ideology, or political orientation? Such questions make any single approach to a vast field like "Chinese cinema" difficult at best. Accordingly, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas situates the term more broadly among various different phases, genres, and distinct national configurations, while taking care to address the consequences of grouping together so many disparate histories under a single banner.

Offering both a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogue and a mapping of Chinese cinema as an expanded field, this Handbook presents thirty-three essays by leading
researchers and scholars intent on yielding new insights and new analyses using three different methodologies. Chapters in Part I investigate the historical periodizations of the field through changing notions of national and political identity -- all the way from the industry's beginnings in the 1920s up to its current forms in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the global diaspora. Chapters in Part II feature studies centered on the field's taxonomical formalities, including such topics as the role of the Chinese opera in technological innovation, the political logic of the "Maoist film," and the psychoanalytic formula of the kung fu action film. Finally, in Part III, focus is given to the structural elements that comprise a work's production, distribution, and reception to reveal the
broader cinematic apparatuses within which these works are positioned. Taken together, the multipronged approach supports a wider platform beyond the geopolitical and linguistic limitations in existing scholarship.

Expertly edited to illustrate a representative set of up to date topics and approaches, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas provides a vital addition to a burgeoning field still in its formative stages.

1) Jason McGrath "Acting Real: Cinema, Stage, and the Modernity of Performance in Chinese Silent Film" 2) James Tweedie,"Edward Yang and Taiwan's Age of Auteurs"3) Darrell William Davis, "A Marriage of Convenience: Musical Moments in Chinese Films"4) Zhiwei Xiao"Policing Film in Early 20th Century China, 1905-1923"5) Laikwan Pang,"Between Will and
Negotiation: Film Policy in the First Three Years of People's Republic of China"6) Rey Chow,"Fetish Power Unbound: A Small History of 'Woman' in Chinese Cinema" 7) Louisa Schein, "Ethnographic Representation Across Genres: The Culture Trope in Contemporary Mainland Media"6) Andy Rodhekohr, "Conjuring the Masses: The Spectral / Spectacular Crowd in Chinese Film"9) Kwai-Cheung Lo,"The Idea of Asia(nism) and Trans-Asian Productions"10) Eugene Wang,"Film and Contemporary Chinese Art: Mediums and Remediation" 11) Ying Qian, "Crossing the Same River Twice: Documentary Re-enactment and the Founding of PRC Documentary Cinema"12) Yiman Wang, "Remade in China: Chinese Cinema in the Age of Blockbuster"13) Carlos Rojas,
"Cinematic Encounters in Tsai Ming-liang's The River"

The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas

Edited by Carlos Rojas and Eileen Chow

Author Information

Carlos Rojas is Associate Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, and Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. He is the author of The Great Wall: A Cultural History (Harvard UP, 2010).

Eileen Chow is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies at Harvard University. She is the coeditor, with Carlos Rojas, of Rethinking Chinese Popular Culture: Cannibalizations of the Canon (Routledge, 2009)